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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nivenus" data-source="post: 6407006" data-attributes="member: 71756">I agree with ThirdWizard, you're being semantically obtuse here, whether unintentionally or not. To say a pie tastes better is not the same as to say someone is a better person, which is not the same as to say they're better at math. In all three contexts, better means "more good" but only in one does it have any kind of moral value.They have differing views of what defines human well-being. In the case of a lawful person (I'm going to speak broadly to law and chaos here rather than LG and CG specifically) discipline, honor, and obedience to lawful authority are the marks of what defines a "moral" person, perhaps even more so than kindness or forgiveness. To a chaotic person individuality, personal liberty, and self-reliance serve an equivalent role and again, may actually be valued more than what D&D defines as "good" values.These aren't actually very unusual ideological conflicts, historically speaking. Given forum policies I can't go into too much detail but there are real-world philosophies where adherence to tradition and discipline are more important than the suffering of the individual and others where liberty is put above the life of a human.I actually see nothing in any of the sources you've posted which conflicts with the definition of good I've described. All of the good alignments value altruism (charity), life (mercy), and a concern for the dignity of sapients (compassion). Yep, that sounds about right!The difference is whether they think other values are equally or even more important. Lawful good characters value all of those things, but they also think the values of law are just as important. Chaotic good characters think altruism, mercy, and compassion are all well and good but they also think it's important to be self-reliant and free. As a result, whereas neutral good characters (at their most pure, which let's face it few are) may be relatively unfettered in their zeal for spreading compassion and bringing hope to the hopeless the lawful good character might ask "yeah, but is that honorable?" or "does that seem decent?" whereas the chaotic good character might ask "yeah, but is that self-fulfilling?" or "is that too restrictive?"Both might also look at a neutral good character's unrestrained compassion as kind of naive and blind to the world's realities: sometimes doing the right thing (whether it's the "good" thing or not) means telling a harsh truth or doing something apparently cruel that in the long-term actually might benefit the recipient. A neutral good character would generally oppose the death penalty, but a lawful good character might consider it necessary. Similarly, a chaotic good character might feel freedom of speech outweighs the potential harm done by hate speech, whereas a neutral good character might feel it's never right to spread hatred or hurt another person's feelings. And so on.In any case, since we're defining the values of D&D good, here's what the Book of Exalted Deeds (the book on 3.5 D&D good) says are good's virtues:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Helping others (p. 5)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Charity (p. 6)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Healing (p. 6)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Sacrifice (p. 6)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Worshiping good deities (p. 6-7)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Casting good spells (p. 7)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Mercy (p. 7-8)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Forgiveness (p. 8)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Bringing hope (p. 8)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Redeeming evil (p. 8)</li> </ul>None of those include the "lawful" values of a LG character or the "chaotic" values of a CG character. Instead, it's all about altruism, kindness to others, and spreading good feelings about. A LG or CG character do not disagree with these values (they are, after all good), but they share their attention with other principles that can be of greater, lesser, or equal importance.That's kind of cheating though, isn't it? Most of the debate over how to best promote good in real-life stems from the fact that we must account for the existence of evil and how best to combat it. In Elysium, however, evil is an extreme rarity. Everyone (well most people) in Elysium are essentially good (and have access to about as much as they could need/want), so there's no reason to concern oneself with the argument over whether order or liberty best serves the public good: all of the evil has been filtered out already.More to the point, you're still kind of overlooking the fact there are real-life value systems where certain principles of law (such as honor) and certain principles of chaos (e.g., freedom) are considered to be as worthwhile as the principles of D&D good (e.g., altruism).A good example of D&D law and D&D chaos in action against one another.Only if your definition of human/sapient well-being is the same as a neutral good character's. Which a lawful neutral and chaotic neutral character would not agree with.That's arguably because Gygax perceived the American idea of freedom as essentially chaotic good in nature (favoring liberty about equally with compassion and both over duty or tradition). You may agree or disagree with that assessment, but it seems like what he was going for.Actually, good is somewhere between objectively and subjectively desirable in-universe. It's definitely superior to evil, but a modron and a slaad would strongly disagree that it's better than pure law or pure chaos.Not all humans agree, interestingly enough.Ah, but their definition of what constitutes human well-being differs. A Buddhist thinks a person's ultimate well-being lies in letting go of their ego; an anarchist beliefs a human will find happiness most easily when unrestrained by rules or laws; a Daoist believes that a human's well-being comes from doing as little as possible as effortlessly and without intention as possible. None of these conceptions of well-being are particularly compatible with one another (and none of them match up with D&D's precise description of good either).So while good characters are concerned with human well-being, I'd say most neutral characters (and even some evil ones) are too. It's just that their interpretation of what that qualifies as differs from a good character (and perhaps just as importantly, their actions differ as well).Not really; modrons, inevitables, and formians (as well as LN petitioners) are arguably more at home in Mechanus than they would be in Elysium. They prefer a world of uncompromising order. Similarly, the slaadi and CN petitioners largely prefer the transformative and untamed fluidity of Limbo to the relatively stable peacefulness of Elysium. Individual preferences vary and that is one of several points the nine-alignment system takes into account. Not everyone wants the same thing from their afterlife (or their mortal existence for that matter). Some people want to go live a more peaceful version of their own lives, alongside their loved ones. Others desire a sense of purpose, to serve the forces of law and good. Others want the freedom to do whatever they want. Only evil characters in the cosmology really lose out and even they get an opportunity to snatch incredible power since even a lemure might one day become a pit fiend and a lucky or clever enough mane can become a demon lord.Correct. But law, good, and chaos all define sapient well-being differently. LG paladins and monks believe a person's well-being incorporates the values of law alongside those of good. CG bards (and paladins for that matter, after 4e and 5e) believe a person's well-being incorporates the values of chaos.No, but the hypothetical CG bard would. And likewise the paladin would see chaos as a corruption of good. And both the bard and the paladin would likely see any corruption of Elysium from evil (toward neutrality) as corruption as well. You're not really refuting the argument, you're just looking at it from one side (law).It's false (or rather, partially incorrect) from the point of view of neutral good or chaotic good. It's not false from the point of view of lawful good.Actually, I'm afraid it really does happen in real-life (putting aside the subjective values of good and evil for a moment). Because of forum rules I can't really go into specifics, but needless to say there's been several cases of real-life groups that were well-intentioned and even relatively altruistic, but who ended up sabotaging one another or even fighting one another because of their own distrust in one another.That being said, you're correct that there is no Blood War in the celestial planes. After all, celestials are as close to pure good as you get and one of good's key features in D&D is the ability to show tolerance (through forgiveness and mercy). Celestials aren't terribly likely to wage war on one another, because they're more willing to forgive one another's "faults" and try to work things out peacefully... but that doesn't rule out the possibility entirely (particularly if a chaotic good celestial comes to believe a lawful good entity is erring too close to lawful neutral - or vice versa).</blockquote>

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